Friday, February 06, 2009

Israeli Election Obama Style

Obama’s election is showing up in faraway places, not so much from the standpoint of how he is governing the country, but rather from the successful campaign he waged. There seems to be a copycat effect in the current Israeli Prime Minister race, which will come to a vote next week.

The female candidate Tzipi Livni is campaigning on a platform that says “Vote for Change.” Where have we heard that? She is even distributing tee shirts with the logo “Believni”. She’s asking Israelis to vote for hope in a fresh start, the way American voters did.

The hawkish Netanyahu campaign has its own tee shirt that says “No, She Can’t”. Sounds rather like McCain to me. He promises not to compromise on security matters even if pressured by the Americans to do so.

The ultra-Orthodox party has a bumper sticker that reads “Yes, We Can” in big blue letters and an addendum below that says “With God’s Help”.

Livni has borrowed from Obama’s heavy use of technology, making her website and her personal Blog a crucial part of her campaign.

She’s probably best suited to work with the Obama government to further the peace process. But there are people who will vote against her for that very reason.

As Israel looks to curry world opinion, much as the US would like to do, this election is a critical one. I suppose it’s no surprise that Israelis are just as interested in change as Americans are.